More on headstones, pensions and “Black Confederates”

Regarding the use of pensions to justify ordering a soldier’s headstone

While I do believe that digging into pension records of Civil War era soldiers/sailors can be a means of gathering evidence in support of military service, just as in the case of trying to pin-down individual motivations, pension records need to be examined and considered on a case-by-case basis. I do not say that simply because an approved pension record exist… viola!… a soldier you have! (Great… now I’m sounding like Yoda!). There is tremendous value in the records (Confederate and Union) and I have found that information (and in rare cases, I have actually seen pieces of diaries affixed to records) in the records has filled-in where the military records left a mystery. I have also found where the pension system may have been manipulated by a few Confederate veterans for their benefit (said veterans having been conscripts and joining together to testify on each others behalf to get pensions).

Er… eh… hold on a minute. Just because a V.A. headstone for a supposed “Black Confederate” exist, “does not a soldier make.” Again, the end product is only as good as the research that went into it. Sadly, looking at one headstone or another, this just doesn’t work. Furthermore, it is regretable that criteria of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs is relatively loose and the quality of the documentation supporting headstone applications is pretty much left up to the person filling-in the application (in all, it can be some rather flimsy support to make it happen).

So just how did the Confederate pension system exist in Virginia?

I’d like to get into this in detail, but at another time. In short, the Confederate pension system in Virginia was an interesting set-up. In regard to Virginia Confederate pensions, there was not a central agency known as the “pension board.” Rather, a board existed within each county. At first these boards were made-up of Confederate veterans who could be (and, in my experience, were) very discriminating in regard to the pension applications received. In time, and as veterans died-off, the seats were filled by people other than veterans… and, in my experience, that is where the potential for misrepresenting the nature of a soldier’s service really started to get out of hand.

So, have I seen any “soldier pensions” for “Black Confederates” from Virginia?

Have you looked at a pension for a man named Levi Miller? This application states clearly that the pensioner is black and is issued before the 1924 legislation for servants, cooks, laborers ect. I am currently doing research into this subject and so for he is the only individual in all of the Confederate States that seems to be verified on a pension as a “soldier.”

Thanks for your comment. As Andy points out, the situation has been mentioned in my blog and in Kevin Levin’s. Still, for some reason, I think that there might be at least two other pensions that pertain to African-Americans in the service as soldiers in the Confederate army. Extremely rare, however.

The Winchester, Virginia newspaper of February 26, 1997 gives more details, including how a Virginia slave came to be in a Texas regiment (he was “on loan” from Captain McBride’s brother), and quotes from the letter of Captain Anderson, who was the last company commander and who assisted with the pension. It’s a neat story:

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Four days later [after McBride had been wounded], Anderson wrote, Miller, who had been nursing McBride, “brought me a haversack of rations, and in order to get to me in our little temporary ditch and breastworks, had to cross an open field of about 200 yards and as he came across the field in full run the enemy’s sharpshooters clipped the dirt all around him. I told him he could not get back until night as those sharpshooters would get him.”

But before night fell, it became clear to Anderson that Federal troops were about to charge Company C’s position, and he told Miller “he would get a chance” to take part in a battle. Thus Miller the Confederate soldier was born. “He asked for a gun and ammunition,” Anderson wrote. “We had several extra guns in our ditch and the men gave him a gun and ammunition.

About 4 p.m. the enemy made a rushing charge. Levi Miller stood by my side and man never fought harder and better than he did and when the enemy tried to cross our little breastworks and when we clubbed and bayoneted them off, no one used his bayonet with more skill and effect than Levi Miller.”

After the fighting, according to Anderson, “One of the men made a motion that Levi Miller be enrolled as a full member of the company. I put the motion and of course it passed unanimously and I immediately enrolled his name as a full member of the
company…”

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No idea how accurate and/or embellished that account might be. Full article: